Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Trendlines The Utah Department of Workforce Services does a great job of summarizing the state's economic news in its online publication, Utah Trendlines Extra.  The current issue is dated October 28th.  Unemployment Insurance claims are up 7% over this time last year.  That's not encouraging and doesn't bode well for the budget which is usually released in about a month  Extra is a supplement to Trendlines Magazine which is produced on a bi-monthly basis and has more in depth articles like this one, "Is There Money in Utah?" The thing that worries me are the statistics on high-tech employment.  It looks like it's down about 16% since March 2001. 8:15:20 AM

Weatherization Today is Utah Weatherization Day and it's starting to snow outside.  Perhaps you can see it through one of our Capitol webcams.  The weatherization assistance program helps about 1,300 homes a year to acheive 25% or more energy savings. 7:42:54 AM

New Push for eGovernment Shane Clark, one of our product managers, referred me to this article from Business Week.  It discusses a "four-level path" to egovernment that is similar (but not as well-defined) as Phil Windley's egovernment maturity model.  As stated in the article, adoption rates and building online communities is still an issue.  According to the article only one percent of the population is using Hawaii's online drivers license renewal system.  We're quite a bit higher here in Utah, but we have a population that is very connected.  With some of our online applications, like hunting and fishing licenses, most of the business is now done online.  We're about to add new administrative tools online for contracted license vendors like Walmart and KMart who sell the licenses as an agent for the State. 7:08:41 AM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.